Acts 8:14-17 (NIV)
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Interactions with the Samaritans were still seen as taboo by many of the apostles and disciples. But some of Jesus’ followers remembered Jesus’ two-day mission to Samaria during His first year of public ministry (John 4), and the subsequent belief of the whole village of Sychar. So, they knew that it was quite possible for those people to believe and be saved. But the apostolic council thought it best to send Peter and John to find out what was really going on down there.
When Peter and John arrived, they found that many of the Samaritans were indeed trusting in Jesus for salvation, believing Him to be the Son of God. Their testimony was solid, and the presence of Jesus in their hearts and the changes He had brought to them were solid proof.
So, they moved on to the next step. These new disciples had been baptized in the name of Jesus, the water baptism that had been mandated by Jesus Himself, but they had not yet received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the baptism of fire that would purify their hearts and empower their lives for service and witness.
The process was in two parts. First, Peter and John prayed for the new believers, that they would receive the Holy Spirit. Then, when the time was right and the Spirit let them know it, they placed their hands on the new believers, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Both parts of the process were important. Prayer is vital for the baptism of the Holy Spirit to take place, not just prayer by the ones desiring to be filled (although that is critical – Luke 11:13), but also prayer for those people by Spirit-filled believers. This passionate, purpose-directed prayer not only sets the stage for the Holy Spirit to come, but also brings the power of God to bear on them, enabling them to surrender completely to God (Romans 12:1-2) and guiding them through the process.
The second part of the process, laying hands on those to be filled by those who already were, was important from a symbolic standpoint. The apostles knew that the Holy Spirit was not given to others by them directly – He always came into a person’s heart from God’s throne through the mediation of Jesus. But the authority to participate in the process, to mediate it, was given to those who are already Spirit-filled, demonstrating not only the God-ordered hierarchy in the kingdom of God, but also the community in which the fullness of the Spirit is experienced and lived out.
Father, this whole episode clearly demonstrates the importance for us, your people, of being filled with the Holy Spirit. If merely being saved were enough, the apostles wouldn’t have bothered with more. But they understood that, even though these people were genuinely saved, they lacked the power and purity that only Your Spirit can bring. So, You moved Peter and John to work in that specific area. And they didn’t spend a lot of time teaching a twelve-week class on the theology of the Holy Spirit. They just prayed and then obeyed Your leading to lay their hands on these Christians, mediating the baptism with the Spirit and the transformation that occurred with it, much as Philip had already mediated the water baptism and its attendant transformation. Thank You, Lord, for this powerful example for us. Amen.
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